Report Title:

Education

 

Description:

Appropriates funds from the emergency and budget reserve fund for school textbooks. (HB180 HD2)

 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

180

TWENTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2001

H.D. 2

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to education.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The federal government regularly rates the public schools in all fifty states. Unfortunately, Hawaii's public schools are ranked at the bottom of the list. This is because many students have been using textbooks more than ten years old.

The legislature finds that an August 2000 board of education audit reported that sixty-three secondary schools need more than one hundred thirty-four thousand additional textbooks. This situation has forced many students to share textbooks, impeding their ability to learn. Furthermore, the legislature finds that the need for textbooks certainly exceeds the quantities reported in the August 2000 board of education audit because no current estimates exist on textbook shortages in elementary schools.

Funding for textbooks will reduce the burden on communities and volunteers working to alleviate textbook shortages in their neighborhood schools. Furthermore, increased textbook resources will allow the department of education to purchase one textbook per child, rather than the current cost-cutting practice of allocating funds for one classroom set of textbooks.

The legislature therefore finds that to improve our educational system, funding must be provided to enable the public schools to purchase the textbooks that are needed.

Appropriations are allowed out of the emergency budget and reserve fund to maintain levels of programs determined to be essential to the public welfare. The maintenance of a quality education for our State's youth is undoubtedly in this interest, and the legislature finds that the emergency and budget reserve fund is an appropriate source from which to draw resources for Hawaii's schools and students.

The purpose of this Act is to appropriate funds to increase the availability of textbooks for our public school students.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the emergency and budget reserve fund of the State of Hawaii the sum of $4,500,000 or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2001-2002 for the purpose of increasing the availability of textbooks for public schools.

The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of education for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2001.